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The Tick to be Cancelled
mr.buddylee writes "This is a short write up, but evidently The Tick is going to be cancelled. " There
really isn't much there to read except the notice. I'll keep watching until
the last episode airs on Jan 24. I enjoyed it even if it was put in
a terrifying time slot guaranteeing that nobody saw it. I think if it
had a full season to find a footing it would have been a real winner.
Ah well, good luck to Ben and his future projects.
I'm a big fan of the Tick - the comic book is one of the few I can stand and the cartoon series is pure magic. But the live action show just didn't get its groove going after the pilot. One thing that was missing was the EVIL - most of the episodes spent more time on antics involving dates, sexual misunderstandings, etc, which are fine in their place but not really the best medium for The Tick's histrionics. To really show what the Tick can do, he needs to be yelling "Spoooon!" whilst crushing evil. If he has to overcome some sexual innuendo to do that, so much the better. But as a Seinfeld-like sitcom, the Tick was so lacklustre I actually forgot to watch a couple of episodes.
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
I suspected this would happen. The thing is about The Tick is that your average Fox viewer isn't intelligent enough to get any of the jokes.
Now, I'm not saying everyone who watches Fox is cranially deficient, but think about the kind of shows the network survives on. Ally McBeal. Melrose Place. Temptation freakin' Island! The network is built on running low-brow shows that copy from other successful shows. When The Tick delivers one of his trademark metaphors, most of the audience is wondering why they aren't seeing any car chases or strippers.
Now I'll admit that Fox's early reason for surviving was the Simpsons, but that's an exception in a sea of low-quality knock-offs.
I'll miss ya, Tick.
Any idea what the history of the Simpsons ratings were? I'm just wondering if back in the day they were as quick to axe as they are now.
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How is it possible that we saw SO much advertising for this show during the World Series (A secret message.... from my TEETH!), but I never saw commercial one for the show while it was on the air?Honestly if they would have advertised it a *little* more, perhaps I could tell you what time the show was on. Heck, I don't even know what day it was on. Just like Family Guy.Yet, I am pretty sure we're all sick of 'A Very Special Boston Public' and 'That Goddamned 80's Show' commercials.
A winner is you!
...was cool, though the time slot was awful. What I REALLY want to see is a live action Johnny Bravo.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Come on, you all saw it coming. The Tick was never gonna succeed with all the crap the Fox nimrods edited into it. I remember when the creator of the Tick was interviewed about the live action show...he said alot of the stupid dialogue wasn't his idea and he seemed kinda pissed that some knucklehead edited it to be that way.
Networks are great at shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to innovation. Remember the Clerks animated cartoon? It only lived long enough to spawn 6 episodes but was hilarious and had the trademark Clerks humor out the wazzoo. The episodes built the plot successively, so if you didn't see episode one before 2 you could be slightly lost.
Guess what. NBC (or was it CBS) aired the 4th episode as the pilot! People were lost and wondering what the hell was going on when they saw it. After 4 was 5 and 6 but that was it. It got canned. I suggest everyone go grab it on DVD. A true jewel.
It strikes again!
For those who don't know, Patrick Warburton (The Tick) had a part on Seinfeld as David Puddy.
Like all the ex-Seinfeld cast members before him, Warburton's show seemed doomed from the start. This makes the 3rd flop.
Hmm. I wonder if Julia Louis-Dreyfus' show will be cancelled before it starts. Good luck.
-twb
It's certainly in their price range. How much did they spend on production values? $1.98?
Without the epic grandeur that was the Tick comic book and animated series, the live-action series became smaller than life, becoming more of an ironic statement than a big, steaming cup o' hommage to the glorious yesteryear of comic book superheroes!
Ahem, but I degress. Where were the villains? The villains with villany so insane they could be called mad! Where was Charles, the evil brain-child? Where was Chairface Chippendale? Without these larger than life adventures for the Tick to rail against with his child-like enthusiasm for Justice, I just don't see the point. I mean, where's that call to the Heroe's Quest, chum? Where's the kind of adventure that makes you want to cry, "SPOOOOON!!!"
Ahem. Sorry, I don't know what came over me. I haven't been the same since I found moth suite at a garage sale the other day.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
No, surely, our beloved City is unprepared for gigantic blue justice striding upon the rooftops of their daily lives. The forces of truth and justice fall silent this day, but they shall rise again like the head to the top of a cold one, if you know what I mean, chum. Yes, evildoers and television programming execs, you have won this round, but as sure as the sun will rise over the dark jungles of Tibet, your day in that sun will be over, and then you shall again face... The Tick.
Maybe if they had actually showed episodes, instead of pre-empting it with other crap, it'd have worked better. Or they could've started showing the episodes at the start of the season, when people haven't figured out viewing schedules yet.
The series was pretty lyme if you ask me.
Seriously, though, I think the two biggest problems were 1) flimsy plots (i.e. crimefighters not really fighting much crime and 2) FOX.
It is unfair to say things like, "How did the Simpsons do in its first season?" as I've seen a few people do, since the series, as everybody knows, spawned from the Christmas special, which came from the Tracy Ulmann show short pieces, so it had at least a little exposure before its first true season. Also, the expectations of new shows are different now than they were in the late 1980s. It used to be that networks would be willing to give shows more of a chance to build a fan base. Nowadays, if a show isn't a serious hit by midseason, it gets swept away. Sad, but true.
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
Surely you're not speaking ill of Family Guy? In my book, that's the most ridiculously funny show on TV today. It does have a certain style that you just have to dig in order to like the show, though.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
It seems that over and over again networks put good, or at least promising, shows in awful spots or against established leaders. Hello? Put a good show in a dead spot (Thursday at 8 maybe, c'mon Survivor?!), let it build up an audience, then move it to a stronger slot.
Futurama at 7 on Sundays?! This show is as good, if not better than, the Simpsons, yet it flounders...
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
On, of all places, Nickelodeon, has much the same twisted sensibility as The Tick cartoon (I love them both, truly I do.)
Also the brainchild of a independent comic...uh...guy, the fellow who did Johnny the Homicidal Manic.
Doom Dooom Doom Dooom Doom Dooom De Doom Dooom....
What were you expecting?
IMO, it had a different "silly magic." I loved Warburton's Tick, though it was as different from the animated version as Tom Welling's "Superboy" is different from Kirk Allyn's "Superman." His deadpan simplicity remins me of Dave Einstein ("Super Dave") before he got old and lost a bit of his skills.
I lost all hope for the series' continuance just a few minutes ago when I checked the TV sched and found an all-night marathon of the crappiest cartoon on earth, "The Family Man."
This does not make the world a better place. YMMV.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
I cannot believe no one has posted a "Get a Tivo" or "get a ReplayTV" note yet. So I'll do it.
2 VCRs? Dude, get a Tivo or ReplayTV. Then it will take a month to wipe the smile off your face.